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> They don't want to type out a bunch of words for a question if the reply isn't going to happen for a few hours. I'm trying really hard to understand this min

> They don't want to type out a bunch of words for a question if the reply isn't going to happen for a few hours. I'm trying really hard to understand this mindset. What sort of question either needs to be answered immediately or not at all?

tene 6y ago
Personally, I always try to give people all the details up-front, but here are some rough situations where I'm likely to give people a very short summary instead of a full verbose request for reasons like you asked about: If they respond immediately they can save me 30 minutes of work, but if not I'll be done doing it the slow way by the time they get back to me. I'm making slow progress on a tricky problem. If I write a summary now, it would be theories I'm trying to disprove and evidence that currently seems relevant, but that summary will be less useful and accurate as the situation evolves and I better learn about the issue. I can be unblocked on this task in three different ways, so I've reached out to three different people. I'll ask for help from whoever responds first. I don't know if this is going to take me 30 minutes, or 3 days to figure out, but I'll keep working on it until I do. If it's still a problem when you get back to me, I'll ask for help then, but there's a good chance I might have solved it myself by the time you get back to me. I'm dealing with an outage, and it's very time-sensitive. I don't have time to waste writing stuff up if you're not here to help out right now. If you show up while it's still broken, great! If you show up after the outage is fixed, I don't need your help anymore. I'm not calling you, because if you're not currently at your computer, you probably can't help me in the timeframe I need.
- dorkwood 6y ago
  Thanks for your response. I suppose the biggest problem I have with this approach is that its goal appears to be saving as much time as possible for the message sender, with little regard for the time of the message receiver. Several of the message recipients will eventually need to be told "never mind, I fixed it". By employing this strategy, you need to accept that you will be interrupting at least some people for no reason, every single time, and I don't think that's fair. A problem that could potentially be solved by three people feels like it would be better suited for a public channel. Why is pinging three different people with a "hello" message better than posting "does anyone with experience in X or Y have time to help me with Z" in the developer channel?
mattkrause 6y ago
Perhaps they want to move onto someone else who may be available sooner.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
SapporoChris 6y ago
I have a complex problem that needs fixing quickly. I do not want multiple people working on the problem as they are likely to interfere with each other. So, I have a limited set of people that can fix my problem. I need to check who is available, and I'm doing this in order of my own preferences. (who I think can resolve the problem fastest) However this is very much an edge case. I'm a proponent of just asking the question without saying hello at all.

tene 6y ago

Personally, I always try to give people all the details up-front, but here are some rough situations where I'm likely to give people a very short summary instead of a full verbose request for reasons like you asked about: If they respond immediately they can save me 30 minutes of work, but if not I'll be done doing it the slow way by the time they get back to me. I'm making slow progress on a tricky problem. If I write a summary now, it would be theories I'm trying to disprove and evidence that currently seems relevant, but that summary will be less useful and accurate as the situation evolves and I better learn about the issue. I can be unblocked on this task in three different ways, so I've reached out to three different people. I'll ask for help from whoever responds first. I don't know if this is going to take me 30 minutes, or 3 days to figure out, but I'll keep working on it until I do. If it's still a problem when you get back to me, I'll ask for help then, but there's a good chance I might have solved it myself by the time you get back to me. I'm dealing with an outage, and it's very time-sensitive. I don't have time to waste writing stuff up if you're not here to help out right now. If you show up while it's still broken, great! If you show up after the outage is fixed, I don't need your help anymore. I'm not calling you, because if you're not currently at your computer, you probably can't help me in the timeframe I need.

dorkwood 6y ago
Thanks for your response. I suppose the biggest problem I have with this approach is that its goal appears to be saving as much time as possible for the message sender, with little regard for the time of the message receiver. Several of the message recipients will eventually need to be told "never mind, I fixed it". By employing this strategy, you need to accept that you will be interrupting at least some people for no reason, every single time, and I don't think that's fair. A problem that could potentially be solved by three people feels like it would be better suited for a public channel. Why is pinging three different people with a "hello" message better than posting "does anyone with experience in X or Y have time to help me with Z" in the developer channel?

mattkrause 6y ago

Perhaps they want to move onto someone else who may be available sooner.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

SapporoChris 6y ago

I have a complex problem that needs fixing quickly. I do not want multiple people working on the problem as they are likely to interfere with each other. So, I have a limited set of people that can fix my problem. I need to check who is available, and I'm doing this in order of my own preferences. (who I think can resolve the problem fastest) However this is very much an edge case. I'm a proponent of just asking the question without saying hello at all.